Left Behind
by ylime-imoan
Summary: What if Grace hadn't died. What if Rich had instead? How would Grace cope, how would her best friends cope when she doesn't? Rated T for death/language/adult themes
1. Chapter One: Intro

**A/N – Hello! I'm Beth and this is my first proper story. I'm not claiming to be a writing genius at all, but I do have a passion for it, and I'd love to share some of my ideas with you! I often wonder what could have happened if Rich had died instead of Grace, and here is my take on what 'could have' happened. I have 10 chapters planned for this story, but if this chapter is anything to go by, they might spiral out of hand. Sometimes Grace might seem a bit AU, just like Rich did in the series after Grace dies. **

**Anyway! All mistakes are mine all mine, and if you leave reviews I'll give you hugs (and probably read any fanfic you have, as my favourites are a bit slow at updating!)**

**Disclaimer – Obviously, I own nothing!**

Chapter One

Grace sighed, looking into the mirror. Sometimes she'd look and forget. She'd expect to see Rich behind her. His cheeky grin, putting his hands on her waist and smiling. She'd smile back up at him, realizing how perfect her life was, how perfect he was. As it was, he wouldn't. He couldn't. Grace ran her hands through her hair and imagined it was him. She closed her eyes for a second and it almost worked. The song she had first put sneakily on his iPod was playing softly in the background, and with her eyes closed, she couldn't keep the flashback at bay.

_'Grace, what the fuck is this shit?'  
Grace giggled as he turned around and frowned at her. He was only wearing his jeans and a t-shirt, they were at his house lying on his bed. His eyes looked sleepy, and she couldn't resist the smile that pushed up her lips. _

_'_Your eyelashes they act as cloaks, for your telescope eyes_.' _

_'Seriously Grace, what is this shit?' he propped himself up onto his elbow and looked down at her, still frowning, softer than before though. She caught his eyes and grinned, widening her eyes. _

_'I thought you'd like it Richey, don't you?' she did the puppy dog eyes that she knew he couldn't resist._

_Grace put her hands out, stroking down the side of Richs chest.  
He went to turn around to change the song, and then caught her by surprise by spinning round, pulling her down onto the bed by her hips, and kissing her. _

_'I love you Grace Violet' he whispered, sending chills down her spine. _

She'd caught him listening to it on one of their joint free periods one day, and she hadn't let him live it down. She smiled as she remembered that day, and then it quickly slipped. It fell quickly. Grace mentally kicked herself for forgetting for a second. How could she forget that the love of her life was gone?

She took a good look in the mirror. Her curly dark hair was scraped back into a ponytail, but her hair was so frizzy it stuck out in all directions. He had dark circles under her eyes, and several spots under her skin. She had lost weight as well, and it didn't suit her. Her clothes draped her, making her tiny frame look even smaller and her cheeks were hollowed round her huge deep eyes. She hadn't eaten properly in weeks, she had no appetite.

It had been a month. One short month since Richard had died. Her true love, the Romeo to her Juliet. She hadn't slept properly, eaten properly, or spoken to anyone properly since it happened. Her Dad was the main person she couldn't even look at. He'd lied to her, telling her that Rich had gotten better and that his parents had taken him away from college to get away from everything and the memories of what Franky did.

_''Too many bad memories' he said to me sweetie. He said he couldn't stay after what that girl did. His parents wanted him to go and get better away from all of this, I'm sorry, but he's gone.' _

_Grace looked up at her father, not wanting to believe her Richard had left her without saying goodbye. _

_'He wouldn't.' _

_'Oh, but he has Gracey. I'm so sorry, I tried to tell him to come and tell you, but he wouldn't let me.' _

Her father hadn't allowed to see Rich in hospital, and kept her away from her friends, even going as far as taking her phone and laptop from her. She knew something was going on, she knew Rich wouldn't leave her without so much as a goodbye, but she had no-one telling her any different.

Then one day, her father went out, and Mini being Mini had came to her house and started throwing pebbles at her window. The same way he used to. For a second, Grace had thought it was him coming to say bye to her.  
_She ran to the window. _

_'Richey?' she had guessed something was wrong as she opened the window. Mini was looking up at her, wearing her fur coat and black jeans. It was nearly dusk, the sun had set, but the sky was still a light, inky blue. Minis face looked surprised. _

_'Gracey, let me up?' she shouted, sounding unsure of herself. _

_Grace felt her heart slip when she realized it was Mini, but she needed contact with the outside world, so she ran downstairs and let her best friend in. _

_'Sit down Gracey.' She had said softly. _

_'You need to sit down.' She knew, Grace could tell that Mini knew she had been lied too. She came round and sat next to Grace on the stairs. _

_'What's going on Mini, tell me.' _

_'Honey, I don't know what you've been told, but you know he's gone right?' Mini put her hands over Graces, her eyes welling up. _

_'Of course I do, do you know where? Dad won't tell me anything.'Mini looked up at her, surprised._

_'What?' _

_'Well, I know he's moved away, after what happened, but I don't know why he didn't come and say goodbye, Mini, why didn't he say goodbye?' _

_'Oh Gracey, he's lying to you.' _

_'Wait, who?' Grace slipped her hands around Minis and held them. _

_'Your Dad honey.' _

_'About what Mini.' Mini suddenly looked very grave. _

_'Honey, Rich has gone, forever.' She looked up at Grace. _

_'Yeah, but he could come back, right?' Grace already had her suspicions, but she didn't want to know what was coming. _

_'No, Grace.. he's dead?' _

__She'd collapsed. Crying until there were no tears left. She hadn't spoken to her Dad, but he knew what had happened. She guessed Mini or Liv had told him. He should have told her. He should have let her know, he should have let her see him.  
David hadn't actually spoken properly to Grace, he'd said 'I'm so sorry.' Many times, but Grace knew he didn't mean it. He lied to her, over and over, and if it wasn't for her friends, he would have gotten away with it. Her Mum had tried to tell Grace why she hadn't told her. She didn't listen.

'Grace, Mini and Liv are here!' her father shouted up the stairs. She didn't reply, she knew that they'd come up anyway, they always did.

Sure enough, there was a quick knock at her door, and she heard Liv whisper at Mini to 'just go in.' They did. The door creaked open, and Grace sensed, rather than saw, the two of them come into her room.

'Hey sweetie.' Liv.

'How are you doing Gracey?' Mini.

It took them five more attempts each at a conversation starter to give up. They included 'Babes, you look terrible.' And, the more offensive, 'maybe you should speak to your Dad Grace.'

She didn't answer any of them, she didn't want to. She didn't have to.

Liv sat down next to Grace on her bed, the bed her and Rich used to share, and put her arm around Grace.

'Look, Gracey, he's not coming back. But me and Mins are here now, and we both love you, we both want you to come through this.' She said in a soft voice. In contrast, Grace burst,

'I don't care Liv, I don't fucking care about any of this. It hurts okay, it really fucking hurts that he will never be here again. You two aren't in love and you never have been, so don't you dare say things like that when you have no fucking idea!' Grace shocked herself, she never shouted. She saw a funny look pass across Minis face at her words.  
She carried on when neither of them stopped her.

'Franky has fucked off with Nick, and I hate them, I hate them! It was all because of them that he's not here with me where he should be! And that bastard Matty who was driving, he fucked off as well, and now they've left me and I'm just here and he's not and neither are they. Just, fuck off! Why are you here? Why are you even here, I don't want you, I want him!'

She had tears streaming down her face and she didn't care what they thought off her, she was just so angry at everything.

They left together, trying to act as if everything was normal.


	2. Chapter 2: Visions

**A/N Hello again, I'm currently writing this on a Friday evening, the same Friday that I posted the first chapter to this story. It's nice when I've got the ideas and I just need to put them down! I've already had a grand total of 28 hits, I'm glad that people have taken an interest in this story! This will be up by the end of tomorrow (cross fingers!)**

**Disclaimer – Again, I don't own a thing!**

**Chapter two – Visions**

It was midday and dark in her once perfect room. The windows that were always open were shut tight, and the heavy velvet curtains were drawn close around them. The surfaces had a thick layer of dust around them, her school books were thrown lazily onto her desk. Her once neat and tidy wardrobe was bursting at the doors, her clothes screwed up on the hangers. In the middle of the room was Grace, or more accurately, the shell of what once was Grace. She wasn't led on the middle of the bed. She was on 'her' side, with her thin hands wrapped around a Rich-sized pillow to the left of her. Her hair was matted and her eye makeup was smudged. After Rich, she had started wearing dark eye makeup to try and attract look alikes. Needless to say the long haired, metal heads would come over to her and offer to buy her a drink, but once they were closer, she would realize they weren't Rich and would never be Rich and send them away. The frail creature on the right side of the bed stirred.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

She opened her eyes and looked up and the ceiling. She remembered this time a couple of months ago, when the pillow had actually been him. She'd been looking up and dreaming of their wedding, of their future together. As it was, she turned to face the dirty pillowcase, and stared. Her entire body felt tired, including her brain. She felt as if the darkness that had stuck upon hearing of Richards, leaving, still hadn't left. She felt tired all the time, and as if her life was slipping away from her at such a fast rate she could barely keep track. She closed her eyes again, planning to get more sleep, she had had a long night and her head was splitting.

_She looked in the mirror at herself, she was wearing a long top, that just covered her bum, with some fishnet tights and some gold necklaces. She had some old, battered, maroon Converse on her feet. Her skin was unusually pale, and had a weird blue-ish tinge of someone who had been outside for too long. Her hair stank of smoke and was left loose down her back. She had dark-ringed eyes, with her eyelashes long and curling. She knew she was trying to emulate the girls men like her Richard would go for, but she didn't care. She just needed the warmth of a body that could, if she squinted,look like him. Out of the five boys that had approached her in the last month, two had appropriately looked similar to Rich, and had made the cut to come back to her house. One the way however, one of the boys had a better offer. That night had been a relief, to Graces surprise. The one that had made it too her house was actually the one that looked most like Rich. He had heavy jeans on, a black leather jacket and a Slayer t-shirt on. His face was similar enough to pass, but even in her drunken state, Grace knew this was a huge mistake. They had started kissing, but she couldn't do it, she kept seeing images of him behind her eyelids, them together, their happiest moments, and ended up kicking the clone out before they'd even got up the stairs. He protested a little, but after seeing the look on her face, told her he was sorry and left._

_Now all she wanted was the attention. It made no comparison to how Richard had loved her, or how she loved him, but at the moment, it was the closest she could get._

_She ran downstairs and bumped straight into her father._

'_Grace, are you going out like that?' he said, shocked, as he looked at her up and down. She'd previously changed at Mini or Livs house, but this time, she was going out by herself._

_She nodded and skirted past David, he called after her, as she ran out of the house,_

'_I've said sorry Gracey' Grace flinched at his use of her nickname, but carried on running._

_She stopped running once she had rounded the corner. It was 7 o'clock on an autumn evening and she had no jacket. She started shivering, and decided to get the bus to town._

_Once she saw the bus pull up, she regretted her desicion. She gave a quick scan of the length of the bus windows, and her eyes caught someone elses. Minis'. She waved at Grace, who quite honestly felt like throwing up already. _

_Mini had beckoned with a sympathetic look on her face. Grace got on the bus, paid for her fare, and did the nervous walk up to the back of the bus. She sat down next to Mini, who gave her a lopsided hug._

'_Hey, how are you doing?' Mini asked._

'_I'm fine' she whispered._

'_Good, I'm glad.'_

'_Where are you going?' Grace questioned._

'_Oh, just fancied a bus ride. You?' Mini was obviously lying, but Grace couldn't be bothered to care._

'_Town.' _

'_Oh right, who with?' Mini questioned._

'_Oh, you know, the usual.' Mini failed to answer that the usual, was her._

_They sat in silence, until Mini got off somewhere that looked vaugley familiar._

'_Well, I'll see you later, yeah?' questioned Mini._

'_Ok.' Grace replied._

'_Just, I hope you're ok, you know, about Rich.' She shot at Grace._

'_He's fine, and so am I.' Mini looked starteld as she came back towards Grace._

_Mini had looked like she wanted to hug Grace, but decided better of it. Turning around she strolled of the bus, and waved at Grace as they pulled away. Grace looked straight ahead._

_Once Grace had got to town, and was in the club, she gave a quick look around at the sort of crowd there tonight. It was the usual, blonde, tanned, toned girls wearing Ramones T-shirts. The kind of girls Rich hated. She doubted she would find any body remotly similar to him doubted she'd ever find anyone like him._

_The music was flowing through her body, and she couldn't hear anything but the music. She'd had several shots (her new style made it a lot easier to be served) and her head was feeling fuzzy. Swaying in time to the music, she flashed back to a time when her and Richard had braved the clubs together. Suddenly, she felt hands on her body, running over her hips and across her front. She sensed the person leaning down to kiss her neck, she tried not to flinch at their touch. It felt, right though, for some reason. She tried to carry on dancing, but couldn't properly without finding who it was. She spun round and smiled the widest she had in weeks._

'_You all right Gracey?' he whispered, his hair messed up as he ran his hands through it._

'_Rich'she replied, and he nodded, smiling._

_She went home with him that night._

Grace yawned and rolled over. Sitting up, she looked around and memories of the night before came flooding back to her. She looked around again, searching for Richard, who she disinctly remembered sleeping with last night, it had felt so good being close to him. Instead, all she had was a splitting headache, and a flashing phone.

Reaching over to check her phone, she groaned at the feeling of nausea that flooded over her. She sat back onto her bed and after having a quick breather, she checked her phone.

'R u ok G? Hvnt seen u in a while' it was from Liv.

Grace didn't need her, she didn't need anyone but Richard. She threw her phone at the floor, and curled back up with pillow-Rich.

AN – Oh wow, this is not going well, I'm really sorry that this chapter is so shit, it's mainly a filler for some bit Grace/Angst moments in the next chapter. Any mistakes are mine as well.

I wonder why Mini was on the bus? ;)

Please, please review for me! Consructive critisism is welcomed as well! :D

Beth xx


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